A round about way to build a roundabout: apartment block stuck in middle of multi-lane highway as couple flatly refuse to give way

Exclusive location. Close to transport. Lots of room. Unique view.

23 November 2012

house-front

Exclusive location. Close to transport. Lots of room. Unique view.

For once all those tired, old real estate cliches are accurate.

Luo Baogen and his wife have refused to move out of their five-storey apartment block to make way for a highway in Wenling, in China's Zhejiang province.

China

So the apartment block now serves as an unusual roundabout, surrounded by a multi-lane highway which, when complete, will lead to Wenling railway station.

International media have picked up on the Baogen family's firm stance, quoting the People's Daily, which reported the couple were not happy with the compensation they were offered to move out.

Their neighbours have moved on, leaving much of the building empty.

Room with a view ... the house in the middle of a newly-built road. Photo: AP

Several reports said changes in private ownership laws in China have made it harder for residents to be forced out of their homes.

The family are not the only people in China to put up such a fight.

The Daily Mail reported Hong Chunqin, 75, and her husband Kung, residents in Taizhou, in Zhejiang province, had made a similar decision this year to stay in a building, which now sits in the middle of a multi-lane road.

The family initially accepted compensation, but then changed their minds.

In England, the M62 highway near Scammonden runs right through Stott Hall Farm.

It was one property to survive when hundreds were bulldozed in the 1970s.

Luo Baogen looks out on the new road which is yet to be officially opened from the apartment building where all his neighbours moved out. Photo: Reuters

The tenant farmer, Paul Thorp, told the BBC in 2008 the farm had become an unofficial service station for motorists.

"People running out of petrol; coming and wanting to buy petrol and diesel; wanting to borrow spanners and jacks and to use the telephone," Mr Thorp said.